Sacrifice

She stopped to hug him, and he hugged her back rather than just submitting to the indignity as he usually did. It went on for a while.

"You know why I believe you, Mom? Because you didn't tell me to trust you. Everyone else tells me to trust them, and that's usually the cue that I shouldn't."

Mara got another glimpse of the man her son would be, and the mother she'd been so far. It hadn't worked out so badly after all.

She knew only too well what the stakes were now, and what she had to do.

JACEN SOLO'S APARTMENT, CORUSCANT

Ben?" Jacen looked around the apartment, but there was no sign of his young cousin. He'd probably gone back to see his parents. He still needed reassurance about the dark necessity in life, passing through that stage between being oblivious of consequences with the careless cruelty of a child, and the more sensitive but responsible acceptance that life dealt harsh and unavoidable hands to many. At the moment, Ben both felt too much and had too little life experience to handle the pain.

Jacen looked through the contents of the conservator and decided to order a delivery from a restaurant instead. There was a pattern now, he realized, and it was becoming less of his making; he'd put the pieces in place, the Force had responded, and now it was his turn to make choices when it offered them. It was a dialogue.

Lekauf was part of the pattern, too. But Jacen was still working out why it hadn't been Ben who'd died. He'd almost been sure that was the way it would end.

So I thought my destiny would let me off the hook with him. It won't.

Jacen comlinked an order for a three-course Toydarian low-fat banquet, and ran a tub of hot foaming water in the refresher. The steam condensed on the mirrored wall, and he found himself writing in the haze with his fingertip.